Call for Papers

Disrupting the Default:
Race, Inclusion, and Research Cultures

University of Leicester | Friday 24 April 2026

2026 marks ten years since the official launch of Advance HE’s Race Equality Charter. Great strides have been made to identify and address the barriers facing Global Majority staff and students, but much work remains to be done.

This free one-day conference at the University of Leicester focuses on the barriers facing Global Majority staff and postgraduate researchers within higher education institutions. It asks how the research culture (the values, behaviours, expectations, attitudes and norms of our research communities) can be improved to create more inclusive research environments.

Proposals are invited for panels, roundtables, workshops, creative activities, individual papers, and poster presentations on themes including, but not limited to:

• The Race Equality Charter and research culture;
• Race equality/equity and precarity;
• Strategies to address the ‘leaky pipeline’ of reducing ethnic diversity;
• Inclusive research leadership;
• Celebrating and recognising excellence;
• Intersectionality and research culture;
• Migration, language, and global research cultures;
• Decolonising institutions or practices;
• Whiteness and research culture.

We encourage a wide range of session formats. If you would like to propose a ‘non-traditional’ session format and wish to discuss this with the organisers first, please email ireacch@le.ac.uk.

Abstracts

Abstracts of up to 300 words, including your paper or session title, name(s), affiliation(s), and contact details should be submitted to ireacch@le.ac.uk.  

Deadline for abstracts: Friday 16 January 2026

Key dates

Deadline for abstracts – Friday 16 January 2026

Notification of outcome – Friday 13 February 2026

Deadline for bookings – Wednesday 1 April 2026

Conference – Friday 24 April 2026